Life Lessons of an Evil Queen
by Bruteaous
Summary: Just a series of one shots showing how Regina's learned to become the Evil Queen we all fear and love. :)


_**Life Lessons of an Evil Queen**_

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**Lesson 1: Love Makes You Weak**

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Regina reclined against the headboard of her bed, clutching one of the heavy feather pillows to her chest and trying to will the void burning inside of her to close. Daniel was gone. Her love—her _only_ love—was gone and it was all because of Snow and her mother.

Her mother.

Regina's gut clenched at the thought. The image of Cora smiling with her arm wrist deep in her fiancée's chest as he watched his future mother-in-law clench his heart in agony flashed through her mind and Regina couldn't stop the sob that escaped her throat at the memory. Not thirty minutes ago her Daniel, her husband to be was still alive and waiting for her with their horses in the stables. Not thirty minutes ago Regina had believed in the promising strength of love to change the world. Not thirty minutes ago Regina had had hope that this nightmare she had been living would finally be ended and she would be far away with the only person who mattered. The only person besides her father who had ever bothered to show her love—a love that had carried no secrets and asked her for nothing in return. Not thirty minutes ago, Regina was a different person—a purer version of herself that she would never be again. That she had no idea was already lost. Already dead, just like Daniel.

"You shouldn't cry, dear. It makes your face swell up like a tomato and even if the king is taken with your for saving snow, he won't be very pleased with a bride who looks like a vegetable on her wedding day."

Regina glanced up, recognizing the unmoved visage of her mother standing in the doorway to her chambers. She wasn't smiling or gloating over quashing her daughter's attempt at rebellion, which was less than expected, and yet Cora didn't appear to be so angry at her daughter's self-pity that she was nurturing a fireball to throw at her either.

"Good," Regina choked out, wiping away the wetness from her cheeks. "Then maybe he'll leave me alone and find someone else to be his royal whore."

Faster than Regina realized, her mother stormed across the room to her side and forcefully grabbed her jaw, raising her face to meet hers. When Cora spoke, her voice was low and full of ice.

"What a pitiful waste you are." She mocked, dragging her gaze up and down her daughter's form in disgust. "After everything I've sacrificed to bring you into this world, this life, to get you to this moment and all you can do is cry and bemoan your misfortune at having to marry a king? If only you knew what misery was—_true_ misery. Compared to real suffering—the likes of which a princess such as yourself will never know—love is so much dirt underfoot. It's not such a tragedy to be a queen, my dear, nor to be bedded every night by a king. No one's eyes will weep for you and certainly not mine. Now, get up. Simpering in the dark does not become you, darling."

Regina wrenched her chin from her mother's grasp, but remained where she was on the bed in the one small measure of defiance she could muster in her broken state. Her dark eyes bore into her mother's blank face like flaming coals and yet Cora was as undaunted as ever. Shuddering, Regina sobbed again and didn't even bother to calm the shaking of her voice as pure rage towards her mother rose in her.

"Why couldn't you just let us go?! Why did you have to kill him?"

"And let all of my hard work run away with you? Oh, you really are misguided if you think that's something I'd allow to go unpunished, Regina. Let me fill you in on something, dear. Dashing dim-witted simpletons like your Daniel creep across every corner of this land like ants. You can't walk anywhere without treading a few underfoot. There are so many, but of kings and princes there is a limited supply. Why do you think that is?"

Regina wasn't in a state to debate the demographics of their homeland at the moment. Her broken heart had failed at containing the intense overflow of emotion seeping through the cracks and nothing but complete desolation was bleeding through at this point.

"I don't care!" Regina shrieked, the shrill sound echoing off of the walls as she finally stood face to face with her mother. Cora didn't move, but remained unflinchingly still. "I don't care. No reason that you can give can justify murdering my lover the way you did!"

"Murder is such a strong word, dear," Cora countered calmly. "What I did was save you from a life of poverty and drudgery, which you never would've been able to be happy in no matter your whimsical romanticisms about everlasting love. I did what was best for you. You'll come to see that in time."

And Regina would.

As time passed, she would come to forgive her mother her not-so-forgivable slights for a chance at having Cora love her in the only way her love starved daughter had ever wanted her to: unconditionally. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride and Regina couldn't will a mother who was as slippery as an eel with half the people skills to love her in return. Because Cora wasn't capable of love anymore—because she didn't even have a heart. And through Cora's brash disregard for her daughter's feelings and happiness, Regina would learn the first life changing lesson of her adult life: that love was a weakness and therefore unacceptable.

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**_Thank you all for reading! :) Please drop a review on your way out. _**


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